Far from Home
by RainbowBetty
Summary: Canon-divergent future!verse. Team Free Will continues to hold out against Heaven and Hell and it's a tug-of-war for what's left of the planet... until Cas helps Sam go through with something worse than Yes, and Dean can't seem to pick up the pieces.
1. Chapter 1

A/N #1: Okay. So this is completely divergent from canon in that Sam, Dean and Cas continue to fight as Team Free Will, and it diverges from 2014 end!verse in that Sam never says yes to Lucifer.

A/N #2: The title and certain key details of the story are, shall we say, heavily "inspired" by the song "Walking Far from Home" by Iron & Wine. Please, please, please don't sue me. This is just for fun.

A/N #3: Please follow, I'll write faster if I know you're interested. :-)

* * *

Dean was standing apart from the crowd of mourners, absently watching the kids scratch new names into the soft wood of the wall when he saw it. It made his breath catch, and spots of dizzying rage flickered over his vision. He swooped in and clutched one of the kids by the back of his shirt and hauled him to his feet, pointing at the name and thrusting him bodily toward it, making the kid stumble over his own feet in a cloud of dust.

"Who did this?" Dean yelled.

The group had gone silent, the kid white as a sheet and Dean could feel himself shaking. "Who?" he demanded. He looked around at the other kids, all inching away from him, and he let go of the ragged collar of the kid's shirt in disgust.

"Dean."

Dean spun around, recognizing the voice, and if it had been anyone but Jo in that moment he would have brought a fist along with the motion. Somebody had better have a damn good explanation or he was going to start throwing punches.

"Dean, come on."

She put her hand on his arm gently, her voice low, motherly, and fuck, Jo was too goddamned young to sound _motherly_, and that just pissed him off more. He yanked his arm away from her and pointed again at the name. "Did you see this? Do you know who's responsible for this?"

Jo drew in a deep breath like she wasn't sure how to respond, as if she was searching for the right answer.

Dean brought up a hand, one finger raised. "No. He is _not_ dead. You take his name off this _fucking_ wall. Or I swear to whatever you consider holy, I will rip the entire thing down myself." She opened her mouth to respond but he turned away, exhaling loudly, and strode off down the dirt and gravel road leading away from the settlement.

"It's okay," Jo said, looking around her at the shaken kids. "It'll be okay." Her gaze fell on the weathered letters of the name _Sam Winchester,_ high above many of the other names of their fallen friends.

It had been nearly two months since Dean put Sam's name on that wall, carved there with the blade of the demon-killing knife, tears streaming freely down his face and muttering broken apologies to the brother he'd tried so hard to protect.

It had all been pretty much downhill with him since.

* * *

Cas hadn't been back to the settlement since it happened, and Dean made sure the men stationed at the far end of the blockade knew to keep it that way.

"Any sign?" he called out to the men on duty. He was glad to see his buddy Carl was among them. "Carl!"

The man looked up, his gritty face curling into a grin. "Dean!"

"Any sign of my brother?"

The smile faded from Carl's eyes but his expression never fell. "No," he said.

Dean nodded stoically at the news and dropped his gaze. The man standing watch with Carl caught his eye, and Carl shook his head almost imperceptibly.

"I'm gonna need a gun," Dean announced, looking up.

"Can't do it, Dean."

"Carl."

"Orders."

_"Fucking-!"_ Dean's fist exploded into the side of the pick-up with enough impact to leave a faint impression of his knuckles in the metal body of the vehicle. When he spoke again, his voice was deadly calm. "Give me your gun. I'm gonna find that bastard and put a bullet in him for what he did to Sam."

"Dean, let me give you a ride back. What do you say?" He reached a hand down from the bed of the truck, shifting aside to make room so that Dean could climb up.

Dean held the gaze of the man he'd fought side-by-side with for three years, and for a moment Carl thought Dean might actually do it. This thing with Sam had destroyed him, Carl knew that. Dean hadn't been the same since Sam had walked out of camp that night with the angel.

The loophole. Sam had called it the loophole. The only middle ground between fast-tracking the apocalypse and attempting to hold their own against all of Heaven and Hell.

Sam had given them a chance. Carl knew that. Everyone knew it. But Dean could only see the aftermath, and he could only blame Cas. And himself.

Dean looked at the hand Carl offered, and he smirked. Then he gave a short, bitter laugh.

"No," he said. "Thanks. I'm good. But I need your gun."

And before Carl could even process what was happening, Dean took hold of his wrist and pulled him forward, flipping him down off the bed of the truck and onto the ground so that he was pinned and disarmed in a move that Carl would have seen coming if this had been anyone but _Dean_, goddamn it. The man who'd saved his ass more times than he could count. It hurt his pride and, if he was honest, his feelings, more than anything. But it also knocked the wind out of him, and when he looked up he saw Dean training Carl's semi on his partner. The other man raised his hands in surrender as Dean took a few deliberate steps back.

"I'm sorry," he said sincerely to Carl. Carl gave him a single nod, and Dean nodded back, satisfied that his apology was accepted. Then he took off at a run.

It started to rain, a heavy, threatening, unnatural burst that broke from a clear sky and rolled in to follow Dean's retreating form, and the two men quickly ducked into the cab of the truck to avoid fat raindrops coming down hard and exploding with surprising force like wet artillery against the packed dust of their dying earth and their truck's cracked windshield.

Carl found himself wondering which one of the archangels was behind it. He wondered if it meant they'd found a way past Sam's loophole.

He hoped not.

* * *

_To be continued_


	2. Chapter 2

The crudely carved letters of Sam's name on the Wall of the Fallen haunted Dean. Almost as much as not knowing where on this cursed planet his little brother was.

Almost as much as his screams the night that Cas—

He blocked out the memory again as soon as it started to resurface.

Fucking Cas.

He had to find Sam before Lucifer did. He _would_ find Sam. He'd let him out of his sight once, and he wasn't going to make that mistake again.

The gun was a comforting weight against his hip in the waistband of jeans that had once fit a lot better than they did now, the rain coming down fast and hard as he walked.

Michael's rain. He was sure of it. It had his passive-aggressive stink all over it, whereas Lucifer seemed prefer the more direct routes to death and suffering. Drought. Disease. Famine. All the flavors of the fucking rainbow.

It was all designed to make him and Sam out to be the biggest self-righteous pricks on the planet for stopping the tide of paradise that was sure to follow the epic battle of good against evil. The rumors that spread from town to encampment all had him and Sam at the center of it, and that meant every last do-gooder was ready to hand him over to Michael. Force him to say yes. He'd had his share of run-ins with coercion, and so had Sam, and that wasn't the prettiest side of humanity to say the least.

They had to look out for each other, now more than ever. He couldn't understand why Sam had _gone _with Cas when he—

He pinched his eyes shut, digging his thumb and forefinger into the bridge of his nose, abruptly cutting the memory off.

Outside of their tiny camp of Free Will fighters, _they _were the enemy. Dean wasn't sure anymore how much of the human race even knew or cared that their freedom was on the line. They didn't care how many times he and Sam had saved their lives in the past. They just wanted their children to stop dying.

Dean didn't blame them. But if he gave in now, every dead baby up to this point would be on his conscience, and he couldn't live with that.

He walked for a long time, finally reaching the ruined stretch of blacktop that had once been a major highway, and he climbed the steep, weedy embankment using his hands for balance to reach the top. It gave him a better view of the surrounding area than he'd had in some time, and he paused, taking a moment to breathe in the hot, rain-soaked air.

The downpour was finally slowing, pattering into puddles formed in the cracked asphalt in an unfaltering rhythm. What he saw made him sick to his stomach.

Entire neighborhoods lay strung out like the decimated ruins of a war zone. The roofs of houses sunk in, sagging and defeated under the weight of rainwater and hail. Abandoned cars sat with their windows broken in and interiors pillaged. Belongings had been dragged out into the streets by floods and torn to shreds by high winds.

The people who had once lived in these buildings were long-gone, of course. Scattered. Every good and decent person he'd ever tried to save, dead or dying.

The wind began to pick up again. Dean turned his collar up and lowered his head, and kept on walking.

* * *

He woke up with a start, having taken shelter for the night under a fallen highway overpass, and realized that he was no longer alone.

He kept still, hand on his gun, listening for movement, for whatever it was that had awoken him.

And then he heard it again, and a knowing smile crept over his face as he slowly let out the breath he'd been holding, letting his shoulders sink back against the poured concrete slab. Because... yeah. He'd heard that sound bleeding through thin hotel walls his entire life.

When he was old enough to protect his brother and shoot a gun but apparently too young to know what his dick was for, his dad had turned an abhorrent shade of red and tried to explain the sounds away as "people fighting." He and Sam had exchanged knowing looks and laughed about it under the bedspread of whatever twin they were sharing that night.

He'd been the one to have "the talk" with Sammy. Dean smiled at the memory of Sam's mortified expression and the way he'd pleaded with Dean to never, ever talk about this stuff again. And then, days later, he'd come back to Dean with questions. Very specific, technical questions because he had to understand it all, had to have all the facts and details straight, double check his research. Geek boy.

Dean shifted lower on the incline, finding an opening in the piled stones to peer through, and saw the bare skin that accompanied the soft, eager noises he was hearing.

He smiled appreciatively. The girl had great tits. It was good to know what you were fighting for.

Lost in the moment, his boot shifted against the stone it was anchored against, sending a cascade of rock clattering down the concrete incline, and then it was over for both parties. Dean scrambled to his feet. The girl yelped and rolled onto her stomach, reaching for her clothes, while the man—stark naked—made a grab for a bowie knife and held it out in front of him threateningly.

He recognized Dean at once, and his face paraded through a range of expressions from shock to confusion and landing on anger mixed with hatred. _"You,"_ he spat.

"Just... hang on," Dean started. "This is a mistake. I wasn't trying to—"

The naked man lunged toward him, taking a vicious swipe with the knife. Dean leaped back, the blade just catching the sleeve of his jacket. "Settle down!" he shouted.

"First _Sam _Winchester. Now you. You bring _Hell _here with you. You bring the end of days down on us!"

"Wait, Sam was—?" Dean dodged another strike from the man's knife and then desperately caught hold of his wrist and twisted it around behind his back, then pushed him up against one of the huge concrete pylons. "You saw Sam?"

"Get off me!"

"Was he all right? Was Cas with him? The—the angel?"

"You bring the _angels _everywhere you go! You bring them _all _down on us!"

The girl, half in her clothes with hair everywhere shouted something incoherent just behind Dean and he felt something sharp pierce his shoulder. Dean cried out and instinctively reached for the blade with his other hand, letting go of the man. He came at Dean with a quick series of blows that Dean tried to block, but he quickly found himself curled on the ground trying to protect his head from the kicks they were both aiming at him.

_I just need to find Sam,_ he kept shouting at them, or trying to. He couldn't hear his own voice over the rushing in his ears.

Eventually, everything went black.

When he opened his eyes again, he was alone. The harsh light of day informing him that it was at least mid-morning. He may have passed out. He may have died. He couldn't be sure anymore, it felt the same. He didn't know how many times Michael had brought him back. For a while he'd wondered if he might have an expiration date or if it was only possible so many times. Did he have a fixed number of times to die before this nightmare ended? Maybe he had nine lives, like a cat.

It had been more than nine, of course.

He came up wearily on one elbow and spat dried blood and dirt from the back of his throat.

His shoulder ached, but it wasn't the piercing pain of a fresh stab wound. It was the dull throb of wronged ligaments and muscle fibers hastily knit back together, like the fragments of a porcelain doll stuck back together with glue and painted over as if nothing had happened.

They _had _beaten him to death, then. Nice.

Dean reached around and felt the gaping hole in his leather jacket where the girl's knife had penetrated and cursed. "Son of a bitch..."

Then he remembered.

_Sam._

They'd seen him. Maybe recently. Maybe he was even with that fucker Dean had once called a friend, who had led Sam out beyond the blockade, made Sam sit on the edge of a low rock and cupped Sam's face in his hand, made him look up at him while he held a—

"No," he said aloud, shaking himself and hastily blinking away the flicker of memory. His voice sounded too loud in the surrounding silence.

He picked up his gun and followed the road leading to the next town.

* * *

_To be continued._

A/N: If you followed, reviewed, and/or favorited, I love you! :-) This quick update was just for you! xoxox


	3. Chapter 3

You got used to the hunger after a while. It ate away at you at first with a sharp insistence until it just faded away into the background noise of a thousand other annoyances like heat, or dry skin, or soreness, or fatigue. Things that were easily ignored. But thirst, that was another thing. That wasn't a thing you could ignore.

Dean kicked at a rock on the dry pavement to distract himself from it, counting the paces it took him each time to catch up with where it landed.

The drought had been hardest on the more densely populated areas, where the initial scramble for hoarding canned food ended in bloodshed, and then a vast, unsettling quiet gradually descended on the cities as more died and those who were left moved their families further out to try and scrape a living off the dry earth. The disease that poisoned the lakes and rivers meant waiting on rain for survival, and the blight quickly put an end to the last of the flowering plants and trees.

He was far enough now south to guess that the spindly stems of dwarfed trees, ordered like matchsticks across this barren stretch, had been an orchard once. He imagined what it might have looked like Before, and then he quickly tried to push it out of his mind.

On the distant horizon, he could see the shapes of clustered buildings gradually coming into view. He remembered when pulling into a town meant finding a bar and a hotel room for the night, leaving Sam to do research while he chatted up the locals. It seemed like so long ago.

_Sam_ seemed so long ago. God, he missed his brother. The loneliness was so bad sometimes.

A flash of movement coming toward him caught his attention.

_Kids_, he told himself. _Just kids._

It took him another second to process the fact that they were running toward him wearing expressions of panic, not playfulness.

"What's wrong?" he shouted, running toward them and catching one of them by the shoulders, knowing immediately that it was something bad. Because it was always bad.

The kid gasped, out of breath and terrified. He pointed back behind him. "Emma," he stuttered. "Sh-she—_help!"_

"Okay. Show me." Dean ran back through the field of dead trees. A crowd was pressing in close on something, people talking over each other and shouting to be heard.

"What is it?" Dean demanded.

Someone was crying, wailing louder than the rest. Dean pressed in through the crowd, wanting to see, wanting to help. More than anything, he wanted to block out the sounds of grief that never seemed to stop. He wanted to silence them all forever.

"Oh… Jesus," he murmured when he saw.

The woman, the mother, was bent low over the girl whose skin had gone pale with death. Her lips were tinged pink with the sickness that had torn through her insides, her fingers convulsed and contracted, frozen like claws, and there beside her on the ground was the thing that had caused it. A gnarled, misshapen, disease-riddled apple with half a bite taken out of it. A thing that had struggled and survived against all odds to blossom and bear fruit full of the poisons that infested this world just so that it could kill an innocent little girl in a dusty yellow dress.

What was this backwards, twisted Eden they were left with, filled with pain and lies?

Dean felt bile rise in the back of his throat, knowing that on some level that he was to blame. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

_Dean._

It was as if he'd heard his name, but he ignored it. He blinked past tears and moved his limbs automatically, pushing bodies aside and trying to feel his way through to the open air, needing to get back to the road. Needing Sam. Just something of Sam. Any part of Sam. He couldn't do this alone.

It was then that his gaze wandered over the crowd, and his eye was drawn to one figure in particular, broad shoulders that slouched but still stood half a head taller than the rest.

The sharp profile. The curtained fringe of brown hair falling in a gentle curve over the angle of his cheek. Lips a breath apart, his narrow, slightly tilted eyes trained on the ground near his feet.

Sam.

"Sam!"

The crowd closed in like a tide, blocking his path. He shouted Sam's name again and again, but the rising voices in of the crowd drowned his out. He shouldered his way into the crowd, through the tight press of bodies, fighting his way toward the man he was certain was his brother.

_Sam, look at me. Look up. Look at me. Find me._

Without warning, the Sam in his memory screamed, blood pooling in his eyes, and Dean stumbled from the sudden onslaught of nausea the image dredged up in him. He caught himself on his hands against the coarse, straw-like grass of the field.

"Sam," he breathed, clutching at the grass. "Oh god."

"You okay?" another man asked him, laying a hand on his back. Dean tried to bring up a hand to wave him off, but it wasn't very convincing.

"There used to be flowers," Dean said for no reason, feeling a sick and hollow desperation clench inside his chest and sensing that it had something to do with Sam. "There were... birds, and... shit, this all used to _mean_ something. There used to be something here worth saving. I should just say yes. Get it over with."

"Dean. You don't mean that."

It wasn't a voice he ever expected to hear again. He felt his face twist with rage and his hands ball into fists, and he propelled himself off the ground with a harsh cry of raw fury. Cas caught him in what was almost an embrace, holding his wrists out and away with surprising strength. Dean fought and shouted and cursed, letting the tears come that he'd been holding back. He quickly exhausted what little strength he had and pulled free of the grip Cas had on him, stumbling back, and breathing hard.

"Where's my brother," he demanded.

"I'm sorry, Dean," Cas said, his eyes narrowing in sympathy. "I should never have left you."

_"Left_ me!" Dean ran a hand over his face, pushing away tears that he still refused to acknowledge. His voice sounded rough, like something dragged over concrete. "I should have killed you for what you did... what you did to Sam."

"I realize that was your intention."

"Where is he?"

Cas looked behind him, over his shoulder, and Dean followed his gaze, hoping. Praying to catch a glimpse of his brother. But Sam wasn't there. It was the same throng of people gathering around the poor, dead girl and her poor, grieving mother. The same people Dean was supposed to be saving. Fighting for. Protecting. The people he was failing.

"Sam is safe, Dean. I promise. Lucifer will never find him."

"Goddammit, you son of a bitch," Dean's hand went to the weapon in his waistband, his fingers closing on around the grip. "You're close enough to human now to feel the bullet I'm about to put in your skull if you don't take me Sam."

Cas looked at Dean almost sadly, as if something in him saw through the facade of anger to the depth of his pain, and he nodded. "He's at... home."

"Where's home?"

"Come with me. I'll take you."

* * *

_To be continued._


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: It occurred to me after I sent out this update that I probably should have included a *graphic violence* warning, and if you read this and were scarred for life, I am sorry.**

**If you are just reading now, I don't *think* it's graphic, but the nature of what happens is potentially, well... I don't want to scar anyone. If you're squeamish, you might want to read through your fingers.**

* * *

Dean kept his finger on the trigger of his gun as he walked, his eyes on the dusty hem of the familiar trench coat in front of him. At least Cas, being Cas, didn't try to make conversation. He simply walked ahead in purposeful silence.

Dean's thoughts wandered anxiously to Sam, skimming haphazardly over the last memory he had of seeing Sam alive, like a glare of sunlight against the surface of a still pond. He squinted, not daring to peer through it, instead remembering Sam _before_. Sam knee-to-knee with him in the bunker they shared, divvying up the task of cleaning the guns at the end of the day. Sam's hair too long and his face too drawn, but still Sam. Still his brother, still all he had.

Dean frowned suddenly at the grim, tired, quiet brother in his memory. When, exactly had Sam stopped talking and turned inward like that? He just shook his head and nodded or shrugged, and Dean realized he hadn't even thought to ask what was wrong. He'd _known_ what was wrong, or thought he knew. The apocalypse was wrong. What would have been the point in talking about it?

At some point, Sam had gone quiet. And then he'd just gone. Leaving Dean with nothing but a name on a wall.

"Cas," he asked. "How much farther?"

Cas turned, raising his eyebrows as he answered. "Not far," he promised.

Somewhere in the distance a dog was barking, the echoes of it lonely and feral. _Scavenger_, Dean thought, wondering if it had been someone's pet once or been born to this life. He knew some of the men in his camp shot dogs just like they shot raccoons to keep them out of the food, but he'd never been able to bring himself to do it. Sam had always wanted a dog. A dog and a back yard with two kids and someone to share it with. And Dean had always thought that was so selfish of him.

Along the main road into town, deserted office buildings and retail spaces stood back from the street and parted like a sea, their silent shadows ghosting across the pavement. Dean felt immediately ill at ease.

"You live in town?" he couldn't help asking.

Their footsteps echoed together on what was left of the broken sidewalk. Cas didn't look at him. "In a manner of speaking."

Dean felt a surge of protectiveness and fear for his brother. "Well, isn't that _dangerous_?" he demanded. One of the first things he and Sam had learned was to avoid towns, cities, roads, anything paved. For some reason, it was harder for the angels to find them outside of their manmade structures. It didn't make a lot of sense, but then, Dean had to admit, not a lot of things did. He'd long since stopped trying to make sense of things.

Cas didn't answer right away, and Dean caught his arm, spinning him part of the way around in mid-stride. "Hey! I asked you a question."

"It is not dangerous," Cas responded mildly.

"So what about Lucifer? Your wards are that good now when they weren't worth shit back at camp?"

"Dean..."

_"What?"_

Cas frowned at him, tilting his head curiously. "Do you not remember?"

Something begged to be known at the edge of his awareness, and he quickly shied away from it.

"I remember enough," he said roughly.

"Then you know that–"

"You said you'd take me to Sam," he cut in.

Cas hesitated, then nodded reluctantly, motioning for Dean to follow.

It wasn't long before the network of streets converged on a block with a church that bore the name St. Aloysius and held steadfastly to the remnants of stained glass and dignity. Cas unlooped a length of chain from around the metal gate blocking the private drive and moved weeds aside with his foot to get it to swing clear, letting Dean walk through first so he could close the gate behind him. On either side of the narrow, overgrown strip of pavement winding through the acreage behind the church, marble saints stoically marked off plots of earth while stone angels draped mournfully over headstones.

_No no no no, fuck,_ it was a cemetery. _Sam..._

Dean felt his vision narrow and his chest tighten. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't move. His hand was still on the gate, and he was distantly aware that his knees weren't holding him. "Cas, you–"

Loss. Overwhelming loss came at him from all sides without warning, blinding and drowning him, dragging him down. Nothing left of Sam but his name on the wall.

"You killed him," he choked out, reaching back and grasping weakly at the metal gate.

"I didn't," Cas said gently.

Dean looked up at him, memories he didn't want forcing their way to the surface. "You..."

Cas crouched in front of him. "Dean. Sam needed my help. Do you remember?"

"No. Don't, don't talk to me."

"Dean, listen."

Dean shook his head, pressing his hands into his eyes, the two realities refusing to align. "No. You–"

"I made it impossible for him to give consent to Lucifer."

"You–"

Dean turned his head away, wincing as the memory he'd been shoving down and pushing away washed over him in full, harsh detail.

He'd awoken on instinct when he'd heard Sam moving around the room they shared. It was the middle of the night, but Sam was dressed, and Dean had followed him and Cas through camp, just outside earshot of the watchers and the rest of their group. Cas led Sam to an outcropping of rock, and Sam sat, looking up at him trustingly. Cas held a thin metal rod in one hand, but it didn't _mean _anything. It didn't make any sense until Sam closed his eyes, and then Dean saw what was about to happen and he broke into a run shouting _no-no-no, _but it was too late and Sam had _screamed–_

"Cas, no!" Dean cried in anguish, looking up at the angel, his one-time friend, betrayal and hurt and horror and hopelessness written in his face. He buried his face in his hands, wishing he could block out the terrible images from his mind forever. "How could you do that to him! My brother, Cas. How could you?"

He had flung Cas to the ground, away from Sam, not understanding. He'd cradled his hysterical brother and pried his hands away from his eyes, terrified by the blood, so terrified and sickened – not understanding, not at all – and he'd screamed at Cas to _keep away or he'd fucking kill him. _And Sam had gone strangely quiet and passive, his eyes oddly blank. Not responding. _Not Sam._

Cas reached out for Dean, a gesture of comfort that Dean dodged and recoiled from. Cas drew his hand back. "Dean, it was the one thing I _could _do. Sam is my friend, and he came to me, and he asked me for help. He _asked_ me, Dean."

"No. That doesn't…"

"Did you _know_ how bad it was?"

_Should have asked._ The accusation hung in the air between them. Cas knew Sam hadn't been able to talk to Dean about Lucifer. And he had tried. Dean realized that now.

"You mean the dreams," Dean said, and Cas nodded. Dean ran a tired hand through his hair, looking at the ground.

"He assumed for some time that Michael visited you as well. When I assured him that was not the case, he was… relieved."

Dean drew back against the gate, using it as an anchor to push to his feet. "Fuck," he said. "I should have… Fuck."

"It was Sam's decision."

"No, don't do that." Dean glared, taking a step toward him. "You don't get to do that. Nobody in their right fucking mind _decides_ they want a fucking lobotomy. This is _my fault_ and it's _your fault_, and it's fucking goddamn Lucifer's fault, but don't you _dare_ say Sam asked for it! If it was that bad, if Sam was that bad off that he was… that he had to…" Dean exhaled, feeling tears press against the back of his eyes, and he refused to break down in front of Cas.

Cas' eyes shifted down, and he pressed his lips together, nodding tightly.

"Where is he now?" Dean asked, more softly.

Cas met Dean's eyes again. He looked slightly surprised. "Then… you don't recognize this place?"

Dean looked past Cas, down the narrow, paved road as it curled through the hills of the overgrown churchyard.

Suddenly, everything around him shifted and something long-forgotten clicked back into place.

He'd been here before, long ago, with Sam.

And oh god, Cas hadn't been lying. This was _home._

* * *

_To be continued_


	5. Chapter 5

Just like that, Dean realized what he was seeing, what Cas had meant by _home._

He'd stood in this exact spot, years before, looking out over these same headstones, these same graves and long-dead remnants of humanity, years before. Before so many seasons of neglect and destruction had reduced its neat, ordered lines of grassy pathways to overgrown tangles of weeds and trees fighting each other for survival.

"How did you—" Dean broke off as emotion threatened to overwhelm him. He swallowed and closed his eyes for a moment. "No, I didn't know," he said instead. "After we... I lost track of where we were, I guess. I never thought..."

Never thought there was any chance of coming back here, of ever seeing her again. That's why the graveyard had seemed appropriate like an appropriate place to leave her.

They'd pulled off the strip of road into the uncut grass, and Dean had shut off the engine and sat in the surrounding stillness for a moment, running the wheel between his hands. Then, abruptly, he'd opened the door and slammed it shut behind him, joining Sam outside of the car.

Because that's what it was, a car. Just a car.

He'd needed to walk on ahead of Sam for a bit, occasionally wiping at his eyes, and Sam had been decent enough not to crowd him.

Dean blinked back tears again at the sight of her.

Weeds had grown up thick around the underside of her black, metal frame, pushing reedy fingers into her crevices as if she belonged to the earth now instead of him. Her windows were milky with grime, years of built-up dust and pollen caked on over her finish. And somehow, she was still beautiful. She was family.

As he stepped closer to his long-lost Impala, Dean noticed that she didn't quite as abandoned as he'd thought at first. There were smudges in the dust along the door frames and handles, and through the rear window he could make out a woven blanket pushed into a heap against the back seat. Books were stacked in the front, some laid open and turned over to mark places in mid-read.

Dean leaned against the car, running his hands reverently along the roof, the door frame, lovingly, like a caress.

"Get away from my car!"

Dean turned, eyes widening at the sound of Sam's voice, and found himself suddenly face-to-face with his brother earnestly holding a gun trained steadily at his head, his expression deadpan and serious.

It took Dean a moment to remember to breathe, then another for his brain to catch up and finish processing the fact that _Sam_ was holding a _gun_ on him. Slowly, he raised both hands in front of him. "Sammy," he said, feeling his brother's name pull his lips into a wide, affectionate grin, relief spreading through him at just the sight of Sam, _alive._

"No!" Sam said, cutting him off with a curt shake of his head. His eyes dropped away from Dean to the ground between them. "Don't. Don't talk. Don't... This isn't—you're not—"

Cas made a move to intervene, Dean froze him with a look. "Sam," Dean said, "Sam put the gun down."

Sam's stony expression faltered at the sound of Dean's voice, something undefinable passing over his eyes. The gun trembled in his hand, and he brought his other hand up to steady it. His gaze stayed locked on the ground, as if he couldn't make himself look Dean in the eye. "Don't," he said firmly. It could have been directed to either Dean or himself — the way he was looking down, Dean wasn't entirely sure.

He tried to catch Sam's eye. "Sammy?"

"You're not, you're not him," he said, his eyes narrowed in what seemed to be confusion and pain.

"Sammy, it's me!"

Sam shook his head, his forehead creased in concentration, and he moved one of his hands from the gun to his forehead, fingers digging in between his eyes. "No, my brother is dead. Cas?" The pitch of his voice rose, sounding frantic, confused. He called out again. "Cas?"

Cas did move then, stepping into the space between Sam and Dean and closing his hand over Sam's holding the gun, speaking softly and gently wresting his grip away from the trigger. Sam's eyes were wide and frightened, anxiously darting to Dean and then back to Cas. Cas eased the gun away from him and set it in the grass at their feet. Then he held Sam's face between his palms and spoke to him in a voice that was low and earnest, their foreheads almost touching, while Sam listened with wide-eyed, rapt attention.

Dean couldn't hear what Cas was saying, and he wasn't sure why seeing the careful, gently way he treated his brother affected him so deeply. It felt like jealousy, having his brother respond to someone else and not him. Because Sam was supposed to be _his._ And more than that, Cas had _broken_ him. Cas didn't deserve him.

Finally, Sam caught and held Dean's gaze, his eyes still wide and clinging with both hands to Cas' wrists on either side of his face, like a child seeking contact from an adult.

"Dean," Sam whispered, his wide eyes filling with tears.

The naked innocence in Sam's voice shattered something inside Dean, and it was all he could do not to cry out as he rushed forward and pulled Sam into his arms. He buried his face in the hollow of Sam's neck, drawing in a breath that was all skin and sweat, and felt Sam's chest shudder in a sob, clutching him back and holding tight as if he were afraid that letting go might mean losing Dean all over again.

"Dean." His voice was muffled by Dean's shirt and tears made his cheek slide and scrape against the stubble of Dean's neck. "Dean, take me home! I want to go home."

Dean threaded his fingers through Sam's hair, holding him close, and tried to find words that would say _sure, of course Sammy, of course we can go home_ when he had no fucking idea what that even meant anymore. Holding Sam pressed close to his chest like this was the nearest thing to home he had felt in years.

"Okay, Sammy, it's okay," he said, mouthing the words into Sam's hair. He looked up at Cas who was watching them both with seemingly impassive blue eyes, and felt another flare of rage. He felt his grip on Sam tighten protectively. "How is this _better?"_ he all but growled at Cas.

"Dean, Sam is... he is still _Sam,_ in all ways that matter. He's happy, Dean. He's—"

"This isn't happy. How can you even—"

"He has no understanding of the 'apocalypse,' no concept of it, and he doesn't understand 'consent.' Which means Lucifer has no way to obtain it."

That hit Dean hard. _Doesn't understand._ His geek brother who loved research and lore and facts, who should have been a lawyer. His grief dropped like a lead weight into the pit of his stomach over the loss of his brother's brilliant mind.

"There should have been another way," Dean whispered, tears burning his eyes. He angrily wiped them away.

"He was weakening, Dean, and he knew it. He knew he couldn't continue to hold out against Lucifer indefinitely, and he sensed that it was only a matter of time before he gave in."

"But we _were _holding out. You said he was having dreams, but..."

"Lucifer was able to invade Sam's dreams and attempt to... persuade him to say yes."

"Persuade," Dean said, spitting the word like it was something bitter. "Persuade, as in the way those fundamentalist assholes tried to _persuade_ me with the free oral surgery. That kind of persuade?"

Cas hesitated. "A more accurate comparison might be kind of persuasion you received from Alistair."

Dean didn't want to think about that. He quickly shook off the blackness and fear that threatened to surface at the mention of the name. It was how he dealt with today's nightmares, by pushing aside yesterday's. "Every _night _that was going on?"

"As I said, he assumed Michael was coming to you with the same. He knew his limits, Dean, and he was afraid. Of Lucifer, of the apocalypse, yes, but most of all, he was afraid of letting you down."

Dean closed his eyes briefly. "Dammit, Sam... "

Cas was quiet for a moment, and then he said, "You insist that this wasn't Sam's choice. But Dean. I would ask that you not take that away from him. It was one of the bravest decisions I've ever witnessed. And the most selfless."

* * *

The afternoon warmth of the sun radiated through the windows and reflected off the leather of the interior, magnifying and trapping the heat in the car's interior, but Dean didn't mind. They had both doors opened, a passing breeze carrying enough air through to draw out the worst of the heat and leaving a whisper of relief like a blessing over their sweat-tinged skin.

Dean's knee rested against the open driver's side door, one elbow propped against the steering wheel and the other hand gently stroking the hair back from Sam's temple, feeling the damp warmth of his brother's skin, so honest and alive.

"Dean," Sam said. Dean looked down at him. Sam's eyes were closed, It hadn't been a question or a request. Just a simple statement of fact. The touch he felt was Dean.

"Hey, Sammy," Dean whispered.

He looked down at Sam and saw tears pooling in the the corner of his closed eyes. "Hey," he said again, brushing the wetness away with the side of his hand. "You okay?"

"Dean. We should go home," Sam said in a monotone that was Sam's voice but somehow a few notes removed from the voice he knew as Sam's.

Dean swallowed hard and looked out the window, across the field at the emptiness, and he brought his hand away from Sam's forehead, running it absently through his own hair. Sam opened his eyes at the loss of contact, searching for Dean's hand, and reached up to retrieve it, pressing it palm-flat against his own head again. He smiled sheepishly up at Dean, and Dean smirked back in response. "Such a girl," he murmured, resuming his gentle, reassuring strokes. Sam breathed out contentedly, the side of his face pressed against Dean's leg.

"This is home," he whispered.

Sam smiled as if in agreement. He stretched, arching his back and sliding his foot along the front seat so that he accidentally kicked over one of the books that was propped open, face-down on the seat. The book landed on a pile of others that were stacked in the front. Sam partially sat, took notice, then leaned back against Dean.

Dean frowned, suddenly making a connection he realized he should have made before. He reached past Sam and picked up the nearest title. It was heavy and thick, textbook-sized. _Introduction to Microbiology: A Case-History Approach. _

"Sam," he ventured. "Are these your books?"

_He doesn't understand, _Cas had said. So then how...?

Sam looked at the book in Dean's hands and then gave that same sheepish, dimpled grin. "Cas reads to me."

"Cas reads to you." Dean tried to imagine bedtime stories about cell division and DNA. He could imagine being _put to sleep _by it. But this wasn't adding up. "You understand this?"

Sam shrugged. "Most of it."

"Sam..." Dean tossed the book back on the floor of the car. "Sam, if I asked you..." He tried to carefully choose his words to see how much Sam knew. "Sam, do you know who Lucifer is?"

Sam looked at him blankly and slowly shook his head.

Dean let out a breath. "But... all this stuff, these books. They make sense to you?"

Sam grinned again, touching his forehead with two fingers, the space between his eyes. It was somehow a uniquely _Cas_ gesture, and it took Dean a moment to place it. Cas had done that, touched his forehead like that, whenever he'd used his grace to affect him somehow.

"Cas says it's his loophole."

* * *

_End_


End file.
